AN AMERICAN. The American Spirit speaks: If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Through many roads, by me possessed, He is the Jester and the Jest, And he the Text himself applies. The Celt is in his heart and hand, He guards the Redskin's dry reserve. His easy unswept hearth he lends Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown, Or cringing begs a crumb of praise; Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humour saves him wholeThe cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul; That bids him flout the Law he makes, Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes The drumming guns that—have no doubts; That checks him foolish hot and fond, That gilds the slough of his despond Inopportune, shrill-accented, The acrid Asiatic mirth That leaves him careless 'mid his dead, How shall he clear himself, how reach Which knowledge vexes him a space; Home, to the instant need of things. Enslaved, illogical, elate, He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate Or match with Destiny for beers. Lo! imperturbable he rules, I-I shall save him at the last! THE MARY GLOSTER. I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim Dick, it's your daddy-dying: you've got to listen to him! Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied. I shall go under by morning, and- Put that nurse outside. 'Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn, And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn. Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too, I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned. if I made you. Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty three Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea! Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight, And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite: For I lunched with His Royal 'Ighness-what was it the papers a-had? "Not least of our merchant-princes." Dickie, that's me, your dad! I didn't begin with askings. I took my job and I stuck; And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck. Lord, what boats I've handled-rotten and leaky and old! Ran 'em, or-opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told. Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you gray, And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way. The others they duresn't do it; they said they valued their life (They've served me since as skippers). I went, and I took my wife. |